The theme of the week this week has been crying. A male client who described himself as tough, and said “tough men don’t cry this is not me I am a tough man!” A lady who said “the tears just come, I have no control over them.” She described herself as crying like a child. One client even demanded that I did not make him do stupid things like cry!
What have these people have in common?
Answer : Self Judgement!
So What is crying?
Answer : Crying is a behaviour that is manifested from thoughts we have about ourselves, others and the world around us. Many people cry “happy tears”, “tears of pride”, “tears of joy”, in these cases we are believing what is happening to us or before us is a good thing, we are feeling overwhelmed with a sense of pride and joy in these cases. At other times we are thinking things like, “I cannot cope with this situation” or ” I am powerless to do anything in this situation”, essentially we are believing the situation we are in is bad for us, so we are sad, angry, frustrated, etc…
You notice I have underlined ‘thoughts we have’. The reason for this is I believe we choose our beliefs, in every single second of every day, some we choose to buy off others some we create, but fundamentally we are in charge of deciding!
Why? When I know I own the belief underpinning the behaviour I can look at it, ask curious questions, without judgement and understand why I am crying and change it if I want.
It is easy as that!
My job is to create that safe place for people to express that emotion, and ask them those curious questions, it is really wonderful watching people from being victims of their own behaviour to being empowered!
Rekha 🙂
Rekha Neilson
